# Emergence Therapeutics

Source: https://onco.cc/companies/emergence-therapeutics/  
OnCo record `emergence-therapeutics` (Company). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Emergence Therapeutics was a German start-up making an antibody that carries a cancer-killing drug to a protein called Nectin-4, which is found on most bladder cancers. Eli Lilly bought the company in 2023.

## Summary

Emergence Therapeutics was a Duisburg, Germany based antibody-drug conjugate developer whose lead candidate, ETx-22, targets Nectin-4, a surface protein overexpressed in most urothelial (bladder) cancers and the target of the approved ADC enfortumab vedotin (Padcev). The company was founded with Heidelberg Pharma as a founding investor. In June 2023 Eli Lilly agreed to acquire all shares of Emergence; terms were not disclosed, although Heidelberg Pharma stated it would receive USD 7 million for its stake. The acquisition formed part of Lilly's renewed push into ADCs alongside its Mablink Bioscience purchase later that year. The former company domain now redirects to lilly.com.

## Fields

- Kind: Company
- Last checked: 2026-09-10
- HQ: Duisburg
- Type: biotech
- Website: https://www.lilly.com/

## Notes

- Company website is offline; emergencetx.com redirects to lilly.com, which is what the website field records. Earlier venture financing (reported elsewhere as a Series A in 2022) could not be sourced from a fetched primary page and is omitted. Development stage of ETx-22 at acquisition not stated in the fetched source.

## Sources

- Official website: https://www.lilly.com/
- BioPharma Dive: Lilly to acquire Emergence: https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/lilly-acquire-emergence-adc-cancer-drugs/654326/

## Connected records

- collections: [BioPharma Dive](https://onco.cc/collections/src-biopharma-dive/)
- cancers: [Bladder & urothelial cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/urothelial/)
- fronts: [Antibody-Drug Conjugates](https://onco.cc/fronts/adcs/)
- technologies: [Antibody-drug conjugate (ADC)](https://onco.cc/technologies/adc/)
- targets: [Nectin-4](https://onco.cc/targets/nectin4/)
- companies: [Eli Lilly (incl. Loxo)](https://onco.cc/companies/eli-lilly/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/emergence-therapeutics.json